President Trump claims North Korea called him — but it was really South Korea

While Trump cracked a few jokes during his speech at the Gridiron Club on Saturday night, he turned serious when he mentioned North Korea and said he was in direct contact with the regime. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

A White House official had to clear the air on Monday after President Trump confused North and South Korea in an astounding blunder that left foreign policy experts scratching their heads.

While Trump cracked a few jokes during his speech at the Gridiron Club on Saturday night, he turned serious when he mentioned North Korea and said, "It was headed for disaster and now we're talking. And they, by the way, called up a couple of days ago and said, 'We would like to talk.'"

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"And I said, 'So would we, but you have to denuke,'" according to Trump.

A U.S. official said earlier this year that the president had never spoken to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un directly, despite trading barbs on the international stage.

But an official on the National Security Council told Yonhap News Agency that Trump was referring to a March 1 phone call with South Korean President Moon Jae In — not the North's dictator Kim Jong Un.

But an official on the National Security Council told Yonhap News Agency that Trump was referring to a March 1 phone call with South Korean President Moon Jae In — not the North’s dictator Kim Jong Un. (Reuters/Getty)

"President Trump did not have a call with the North Koreans," the official said.

Moon briefed Trump on recent developments during the call and the two leaders agreed "any dialogue with North Korea must be conducted with the explicit and unwavering goal of complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization," the official told Yonhap News.

On Tuesday, Moon sent a South Korean envoy to the North's capital in the first meeting with Kim since his rise to power after his dictator father's death in 2011.

North Korea's state media said Kim expressed his desire to "write a new history of national reunification" during a dinner Monday night that Seoul said lasted about four hours.

Given the robust history of bloodshed, threats and animosity on the Korean Peninsula, there is considerable skepticism over whether the Koreas' apparent warming relations will lead to lasting peace.

North Korea, some believe, is trying to use improved ties with the South to weaken U.S.-led international sanctions and pressure, and to provide domestic propaganda fodder for Kim Jong Un.

But each new development also raises the possibility that the rivals can use the momentum from the good feelings created during North Korea's participation in the South's Pyeongchang Winter Olympics last month to ease a standoff over North Korea's nuclear ambitions and restart talks between Pyongyang and Washington.